Thursday night, Sylvester Stallone`s cop picture ``Cobra`` opened nationwide, and it`s certain to be one of the year`s biggest hits. But it`s doubtful ``Cobra`` will encourage anyone to become a police officer, because his character is a hyperviolent fantasy.

There is, however, another new movie in release that also is a hit and may encourage imitative behavior.

It`s ``Top Gun,`` a rousing, at times dazzling, extended music video that celebrates the guts and glory of becoming a Navy jet pilot. Rarely has a film presented fliers so heroically. In that way ``Top Gun`` joins the ranks of such classic airborne adventures as ``Wings`` (1927) and ``Twelve O`Clock High`` (1949).

``It might inspire some kids to enlist just like all the media attention on the space program in the `60s and `70s inspired me to become a pilot,``

said Lt. Doug Fuse, a 28-year-old former helicopter pilot and now a recruiting officer at the Naval Air Station in north suburban Glenview.

Fuse, 28, was asked to attend a screening of ``Top Gun`` to authenticate the film`s spirit and speculate on whether it might actually send volunteer pilots to his office.

It turned out he had already seen the film in a preview, so he was ready to talk while standing in uniform in a long line to buy tickets on opening day.

``I think it`s neater, more exciting, even more authentic than `An Officer and a Gentleman,` `` Fuse said. `` `An Officer and a Gentleman` was more of a love story with very few classroom scenes. This picture shows the enormous amount of classroom instruction that`s involved.``

Bypassing the popcorn line, Fuse entered the auditorium of the Carnegie Theater on Chicago`s Near North Side. ``I really like the opening scene,`` he said, as the lights went down, and the film began with fog-filled shots of F- 14 fighters taking off an aircraft carrier.

``See those guys getting the planes ready,`` said Fuse, pointing at the men on deck and not in the cockpit. ``They`re enlisted men, and they`re the real unsung heroes.

``They don`t get the glory, but you really put your life in their hands every time you go up. You have to trust that they`ve done their job--that they have just as much pride in their work as the pilots.``

Early on in ``Top Gun`` some of its young pilots are caught up in an unexpected, nonviolent duel with Russian MiG fighters. The pilots refer to the MiGs as ``bogeys,`` and Fuse was asked if that was an accurate code word for Russian planes.

``That`s classified,`` he said, and then smiled. ``So as (Tom Cruise)

says in the film (about another military secret), `I could tell you, but then I`d have to kill you.`

``Now here`s a scene I really like,`` Fuse continued. ``It`s the one where the pilot turns in his wings (and resigns after losing control of his emotions and his plane during the `playful` dogfight with the Russians).

``That`s realistic,`` he said, ``because as a pilot you always have to be monitoring yourself; you always have to be pushing yourself. And if you lose that confidence, that edge--to some it might seem like cockiness--you`re no good to anyone, not yourself or anyone in your squadron.``

That notion of cockiness would be the one theme that Fuse, a 1980 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, would return to in his praise of the film`s authenticity.

``I think the filmmakers did a good job of capturing the pilot`s attitude --it`s an arrogrant attitude, I guess--of being, as the film says, `the best of the best.` It`s true: You always have to have that edge. That`s why I can relate to the guy who resigns. I`ve seen it. A guy has to know when he`s lost that edge.``

A helicopter pilot like the ones in the film, Fuse took special pride in the film`s rescue scene.

``Normally we`re airborne during any mission; we don`t wait until something goes wrong. We`re always prepared for search and rescue. My helicopter carried a couple of swimmers like the ones you see in the film.

``I actually rescued a guy once. It looked just like what you see in the film. Obviously they had a lot of cooperation from the Navy in shooting this thing.``

``Top Gun`` may be criticized in some quarters as celebrating macho values outside the cockpit. Fuse was asked about the picture`s hard drinking and off-screen sexual escapades.

``Well, I was married when I went to flight school, so I didn`t experience the `single` scene. I will say, though, that there is a certain showboat attitude that all pilots have. But it`s well-founded, because you do have to have that confidence.``

As the film ended, Fuse had the same reaction to seeing the film as he had the first time. It was an energetic, exhilarating, speedball experience.